by Quan Barry
Abby and Little Smitty were collecting dry wood when AJ Johnson showed up with Sue Yoon and Heather Houston. You could tell they were high by the size of their pupils, big as dimes, but they’d brought along a few joints, so soon we’d all be where they were. Slowly, the rest of us found ourselves stumbling through the woods toward a wavering light just up ahead in the distance, the smell of skunk weed perfuming the dark. AJ had brought along her boom box, Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop” manipulating our impressionable young minds toward unspeakable deeds, much to the horror of Tipper Gore.
Becca Bjelica was the last to arrive. Barry, her boyfriend du jour, had driven them to one of the cheap motels along Route 1, hoping to make it past second base, but Becca heard the song of the lopsided moon and put the kibosh even on first. Girl Cory had also heard the moon’s lament. Though Richard Wolf, the handsomest boy at St. John’s Prep and the captain of the lacrosse team, had wanted to drive around the North Shore in one of the empty limos while getting it on, Girl Cory gave the driver Richard’s Manchester-by-the-Sea address and dropped him and his blue balls off up on the rocky shores of Cape Ann.
By now one of the joints was done, the second making the rounds. The Claw could not believe It had not had sex on prom night. It sat pouting on top of Jen’s head, a bowl of stale vanilla pudding. “Did anyone get fucked tonight?” Jen demanded. “How are we supposed to recharge Emilio?”
We looked around. For a moment in the moonlight le Splotch seemed to make a show of looking every which way but at us. Hmmm…Mel Boucher had a good two hours not accounted for. When the prom ended, she didn’t get in the limos with the rest of us to head back to Danvers. Instead, she told us not to worry, then headed off by herself into the vastness that was Caruso’s parking lot.
“Fuck getting fucked,” yelled Girl Cory. She pulled her dress up over her head, the one she had custom made that put Larry back a cool five hundred, and threw it on the fire. The thing must have been made of the world’s most expensive toilet paper because it went up in a flash. Abby’s dress was next. It seemed to dance for a moment in the flames, as if someone were still wearing it. One by one we all unrobed, put our dresses to the torch, AJ and Sue and Heather throwing in whatever they had on. Boy Cory carefully tucked his rented tuxedo off to the side. He had to return it by Monday to Men’s Wearhouse, but that didn’t stop Jen Fiorenza from tossing his bow tie on the fire.
We turned up the boom box on Queen’s “We Are the Champions.” You could feel the freedom smoldering on your naked skin, freedom roiling in your blood, freedom stomping the earth in the imperfect moon’s light. The joint was still going around. We took turns blowing smoke into each other’s mouth. From time to time this led to lips touching, lingering, full-on kissing, bodies doing whatever they wanted until they were one seamless and eternal body.
It was only then we realized Julie Minh was missing. We wondered where she was and what she was up to. Where she was was with Brunet Mark; what she was up to was making us proud. The two virgins were off in a room at the Ferncroft. They used condoms, and, thankfully, Brunet Mark had plenty. Afterward, he was the one who cried. He was so nervous it took him a long time to finish, which was just fine with her as she ascended up into the clouds of Mount Washington an unheard of three separate times. When Brunet Mark dropped her at home the next morning, her mother was standing in the door. Julie Minh gave her mother such a pitying look, the look one woman gives another woman who doesn’t know the deep satisfaction of feeling her body quake with its own pleasures, her mother turning right around and disappearing into her room. Perhaps needless to say but Julie Minh did not keep any mementos of the experience. No soggy condoms, no stained sheets. What we were still learning: Emilio didn’t need mementos. He didn’t need shadow books and spells and juvenile delinquency. He just needed us to be our true and fully wondrous selves.
A week later we beat Stoughton 3-1. We were Eastern Mass Champions. Our team photo was on the front page of the Danvers Herald, our sticks posed across our bodies like shields, Valkyries every last one. We were headed to Worcester, Friday, December 8th. Mark your calendars. On the boom box, cue up the Queen.
DANVERS VS. GREENFIELD
December 8 was looming, do or die. We spent the days leading up to Worcester running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Le Splotch wanted to make it official by literally cutting the head off some poor chicken, preferably one we hand-selected from Smith Farm. Lucky for us, Little Smitty’s Contusion had enough presence of mind to nix the whole idea, despite the fact that the Contusion was slowly deflating day by day, bit by bit, same as pizza dough once you punch it.
Abby Putnam pointed out another obvious flaw in the chicken plan. “We’re not freaking Ozzy Osbourne,” she said, before taking a crisp satisfying bite out of what appeared to be a rutabaga, the sound like crunching into a snowball.
“Plus he bit the head off a bat, not a chicken,” corrected Girl Cory. We all stared at her as if she had three boobs, shocked that she of all people would be up on the latest news out of the headbanging world. “What?” she said, coyly twisting a satiny lock of blond hair around her index finger. “It’s common knowledge.”
“Look people, it’s Monday,” said Jen Fiorenza. “We have until Friday to power up Emilio like he’s never been powered up before.” Somehow as she spoke she looked us all dead in the eye at once. “Are we up for this?” A few halfhearted shrugs rippled around the locker room, the world’s saddest wave. We weren’t quite sure yet what she was getting at. “Remember Halloween in Salem,” she said, “remember how we smashed up everything we could get our filthy paws on?” A few of us did the remembering we’d been instructed to do and chuckled to ourselves, old Vikings recalling the glory days. Sure, if that’s what she wanted, we could be down for a little smashy smashy. “Remember that night at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, the Ouija board’s cry for sacrifice?” Now she’d lost us again. Becca Bjelica couldn’t seem to recall whether or not the demand for blood was before or after Little Smitty pulled out a gun, and the rest of us didn’t care to remember one way or the other.
Think of prom night out by the reservoir, screamed the Claw, shouting as if on horseback, Its sword drawn and pointed at the heavens, the Claw’s revolutionary breath streaming out Its nostrils.
Nobody moved. The prom was only a little more than a week ago but thankfully, aside from Julie Minh ascending Mount Washington three times with Brunet Mark, it was all a little bit fuzzy. Had there been outdoor nudity involved? Light kissing? Had one of us really touched herself until she screamed, though most likely the whole thing was fake and just an excuse to try out what the real deal might one day sound like?
Heather Houston calmly stepped forward. “Agreed,” she said. “We need a plan. After all, we wanna win Friday in Worcester, and I think it’s fair to say things have been working out pretty well for us lately.” She stopped and looked around the room, a prosecutor addressing the members of a jury. “But let’s not reinvent the wheel.” Then Heather handed us each an index card and a golf pencil. Man, the girl was prepared! “Write out one piece of unfinished business you’ve got going on,” she said.
“Waddya mean by ‘unfinished’?” asked Boy Cory, imagining himself achieving his new life goal of finishing all over a certain captain of the swim team’s chiseled face.
What!!! screeched the Claw.
Nothing, thought Boy Cory, quietly kicking himself for forgetting how things worked around these here parts.
“You know what I mean,” said Heather. “Unfinished. As in: Do any of you have scores you want to settle? Little itches that just won’t go away until you scratch them?”
Some of us thought long and hard about the state of our itches before writing anything down. Others of us filled out our cards in a jiffy.
“Now what?” asked Sue Yoon. Her hair was a brilliant shade of Berry Blue, a deep cobalt color. “Let’s speed this up.”
“You mean Greenfield,” said Abby Putnam. “That’s who we’re up against at States.”
“Danvers, Greenfield, whatever. So long as we come out on top,” said Mel Boucher with confidence. Le Splotch grinned from ear to ear. From the look of things, It was now sporting a pair of incisors.
“Here’s to finishing what we started,” said Jen Fiorenza, reaching forward with her hand. On cue we circled up and put our filthy paws in the middle.
To settling scores! screamed the Claw.
To settling scores! we repeated, before heading back to class, index cards and candles in tow.
* * *
—
An hour later the fire alarm went off. The smell of smoke vaguely filled the school like the smell of distant BBQ. The possibility that it was an actual-honest-to-god fire didn’t light a fire under anyone. Certain imminent death or no certain imminent death, the student body slugged down the stairwells all the same. Through the years we’d been conditioned to stretch fire drills out as long as possible. More time spent fire drilling meant less time spent in class. It was just good math. Consequently, despite the December cold, we were happy to be standing outside in our T-shirts and jeans for a good twenty minutes.
When the firemen finally let us back in, Girl Cory’s locker was completely torched, the lockers all around hers burned as well. The firemen weren’t sure which locker the “original incident,” as they called it, had started in, but we knew. We stood there peering into the charred box that was Girl Cory’s locker, her red Chess King Thriller jacket a lump of ash. Then intrepid Falcon Fire reporter Nicky Higgins materialized out of nowhere apparently for the sole purpose of rubbernecking, Nicky’s jaw wired shut, her broken hand gloved in a hot-pink cast. She looked at us and smirked.
Our first thought was “Philip.” “Not exactly,” said Girl Cory. “I left the votive burning by my index card but forgot there was a stack of old Seventeens in there too.”
We knew it was a lie. Girl Cory hadn’t laid eyes on a Seventeen magazine since she was twelve years old. By “Seventeen” we knew she really meant love letters from “Philip”; by “stack” we knew she meant a few hundred.
Nicky Higgins turned to us and slowly mouthed something.
“What?” said Little Smitty. “Speak up, woman.”
We stepped a little closer as Nicky attempted a redo, her nose scrunching up as she tried to work her lips into words.
“I think she said, ‘Good luck,’ ” said Abby Putnam.
“No, she didn’t,” said Julie Minh. “She said an expletive.”
Boy Cory had some experience lip-reading, as his parents would often turn to each other and talk about him without actually voicing their words.
“Nah,” he said. “She said, ‘You’re toast.’ ” At that, Nicky violently nodded and tapped her nose with her finger.
Look out for number one, sang the Claw, but nobody felt the need to translate Its words for Nicky’s benefit. AJ Johnson noticed the Claw seemed to be keeping Its profile to us, like when a girl gets a bad zit on one side of her face and starts floating through the world like a flounder with only her good side showing, but she didn’t say anything about it.
“Anybody got a pen?” Girl Cory asked. Heather Houston handed her one. We then watched as Girl Cory dug through the ashes of her locker in an attempt to find the keys to her Mercedes. When she found them, they were blackened but otherwise usable.
“Miracles never cease,” said Julie Minh, rubbing her crucifix.
Before Friday and the state championship in Worcester there would be two more fires, each one centered around a locker belonging to one of us. “It’s just a coincidence,” Jen Fiorenza told Falcon Fire editor-in-chief-turned-beat-reporter Charlie Houlihan as Nicky Higgins stood glaring by his side.
Just as the two reporters turned and started walking away, the Claw screamed, We’re red freaking hot!
Charlie Houlihan stopped in his tracks. “What’d you say?” he said.
“Nothing,” said Jen Fiorenza, soothingly patting her hair the way one might try to calm an overly excited lapdog, her head in profile same as Lincoln’s on the penny.
* * *
—
Here’s what we individually listed as our “Unfinished Business”:
Sue Yoon: “Thursday I intend to bring the house down opening night at The Crucible and make Dr. and Mrs. Yoon eat it about me being an actor.”
AJ Johnson: “I have a certain piece of white ass in my sights.”
Boy Cory: “Reed Allerton. ’Nuff said.”
Girl Cory: “ ‘Philip’ will finally put up or shut up once and for all.”
Julie Minh: “My mother will finally accept that my faith isn’t going to keep me from having a life.”
Heather Houston: “My mother will finally admit sugar is good.”
Becca Bjelica: “Even after prom night, I still got itches and plenty of people willing to scratch them. The question is who?”
Little Smitty: “I got something cooking, but I don’t want to write it down here and jinx it.”
Mel Boucher: “All will be revealed.”
Abby Putnam: “Hmmm, I really got bubkes on this one. Really, my life’s an open book.”
Jen Fiorenza: “I will do everything humanly possible and then some to fix It or die trying.” Secretly she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
* * *
—
Monday afternoon a photographer from the Danvers Herald showed up to take our picture. The photo was aptly captioned “Lady Falcons Go Big.” In some ways, it could have been talking about the state of our hair. Somehow we hadn’t noticed it, but over the course of the season our coiffures had collectively risen, each of us some kind of biblical Sampson. The proof was right there on the front page of the Danvers Herald, one and all with a papal miter adorning her head. Even Boy Cory looked like the bass player in a Flock of Seagulls. Only AJ Johnson hadn’t gone Full Claw, though her braids were now hanging well past her butt just like a particular lead dancer on a particular ’80s TV music show, a dancer and show whose names AJ did not allow to be uttered in her particular presence.
Either way, our big-haired appearance in the Herald kicked off what turned out to be a weeklong mini-hysteria. No Danvers sports team had ever made it to States. We were taking one small step for jocks, one giant leap for jock-kind. Suddenly, there was free pizza awaiting us anytime we set foot in Rocco’s. The town library created a photographic history of our sport in its main display case, the display including a picture of Coach Marjorie Butler as a young bucktoothed Turk in a kilt. If we won States, the fire chief promised us a joyride around town on one of the hook and ladders. At the Liberty Tree, our favorite stores like Express and Tower Records hung blue and white balloons outside their windows, offering players and their families 15% off everything in stock including all new releases. Suddenly, our extended families tripled in size and ethnicity. Yessireebob. For the first week of December 1989, we were bigger than both the Beatles and Jesus Christ combined. And we weren’t even the football or the ice hockey team. Man, if those boys ever made it to States, the whole town would’ve exploded.
Still, it was nice to have people go nuts for us even if it was for only four or five days. Heather Houston reminded us that the actual hysteria of 16
92 had lasted almost a full year, the teen girls parading from town to town, a team of heavenly superstars brought in to ferret out the wicked.
“I could get used to this,” conceded Little Smitty while sucking on an unlit cigar à la Fidel Castro. She hadn’t done any homework since it had been announced we were headed to Worcester.
“Yeah, how do we stretch out our fifteen minutes for the rest of the school year?” asked Girl Cory. Assuming we beat Greenfield, she was already thinking of asking her stepdad, Larry, to buy her her own condo in Boston.
“C’est facile,” said Mel Boucher.
“What?” asked Becca Bjelica.
“Easy-peasy,” replied Mel. “I got one word for us: merchandising.”
Collectively, we all tried to picture what we might hawk. Spaghetti sauce, shin pads, feminine products, hair elastics, face paint, where applicable our virginity, our wantonness. Oh, the places we’d go after we trounced Greenfield! The world would forever be our own farm-raised oyster.
Proving instead said oyster was indeed small and flat, the photographer from the Danvers Herald turned out to be one and the same guy Larry Gillis had hired to document our prom night. This time, Maurice the Artiste, as we had dubbed him on prom night, was working alone. Not only that, but now Maurice the Artiste seemed just fine with being called Mo. Mo had no light diffusers, no assistants, no catered buffet with shrimp and cheeses that smelled slightly foul, no endless canisters of film. Similarly, Mo had no vaguely European accent like the one he’d sported on prom night. Instead, Mo now sounded like Route 1 Revere “puah and simple.” Bada bing, bada boom. One, two, three. Each time he took our picture, he didn’t wait until three to actually snap it, which left the unfortunate Mel Boucher with her eyes closed in every shot, though le Splotch looked resplendent and in plein forme.